The #1 Myth About Open Access

"Just what is open access?... In an open access journal, there's no charge for reading articles... Yes, that's pretty much all there is to the definition."

No, unfortunately that is not the definition of OA (which actual means free online access), it is just the definition of Gold OA publishing, one of the two ways to provide OA (and not the fastest or surest way).

The single most important reason OA is not yet growing anywhere near as quickly as it could and should is this persistent perpetuation of the myth that OA is just Gold OA.

Nature's latest reply to the widespread (and mostly valid) criticism evoked by Nature's recent critique of its competitor, Gold OA publisher PLoS, although it perpetuates a few minor misunderstandings of its own, is far closer to the truth in its conclusion:

"[N]one of this may matter very much in the longer run since truly widespread open access to scientific content is coming about through funder-mandated [Green open-access self-] archiving, not [Gold] open-access publishing."

(Nature's reply states that "Nature isn't anti-open access," but it neglects to mention that Nature back-slid in 2005 -- from having at first been Green on OA self-archiving by its authors to rejoining instead the minority of journals who still try to embargo access. Nature's reply also misses the real growth region of Green OA mandates, which is now institutional and departmental mandates like Southampton's, QUT's, Minho's, CERN's, Liege's, and now Harvard's and Stanford's, rather than just funder mandates.)

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum